History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3

by Henry Thomas Buckle

[718] ‘It seems certain, that, according to the natural progress of human thought, the ignorant multitude must first entertain some grovelling and familiar notion of superior powers, before they stretch their conception to that perfect Being who bestowed order on the whole frame of nature. We may as reasonably imagine, that men inhabited palaces before huts and cottages, or studied geometry before agriculture, as assert that the Deity appeared to them a pure spirit, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, before he was apprehended to be a powerful though limited being, with human passions and appetites, limbs and organs. The mind rises gradually from inferior to superior. By abstracting from what is imperfect, it forms an idea of perfection; and slowly distinguishing the nobler parts of its own frame from the grosser, it learns to transform only the former, much elevated and refined, to its divinity. Nothing could disturb this natural progress of thought, but some obvious and invincible argument, which might immediately lead the mind into the pure principles of theism, and make it overleap, at one bound, the vast interval which is interposed between the human and the Divine nature. But though I allow, that the order and frame of the universe, when accurately examined, affords such an argument, yet I can never think that this consideration could have an influence on mankind, when they formed their first rude notions of religion.’ Natural History of Religion, in Philosophical Works, vol. iv. p. 438.

[719] Not that he was by any means devoid of genius, though he holds a rank far below so great and original a thinker as Hume. He had, however, collected more materials than he was able to wield; and his work on the Intellectual System of the Universe, which is a treasure of ancient philosophy, is badly arranged, and, in many parts, feebly argued. There is more real power in his posthumous treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality.

[720] ‘I once believed this doctrine of ideas so firmly, as to embrace the whole of Berkeley's system in consequence of it; till, finding other consequences to follow from it, which gave me more uneasiness than the want of a material world, it came into my mind more than 40 years ago, to put the question, What evidence have I for this doctrine that all the objects of my knowledge are ideas in my own mind? From that time to the present, I have been candidly and impartially, as I think, seeking for the evidence of this principle but can find none, excepting the authority of philosophers.’ Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind, edit. Edinburgh, 1808, vol. i. p. 172. And, in a letter which he wrote to Hume in 1763, he, with a simple candour which must have highly amused that eminent philosopher, confesses that ‘your system appears to me not only coherent in all its parts, but likewise justly deduced from principles commonly received among philosophers; principles which I never thought of calling in question, until the conclusions you draw from them in the “Treatise on Human Nature” made me suspect them.’ Burton's Life and Correspondence of Hume, vol. ii. p. 155.

[721] ‘Suppose a man to be found dead on the high-way, his skull fractured, his body pierced with deadly wounds, his watch and money carried off. The coroner's jury sits upon the body, and the question is put, What was the cause of this man's death, was it accident, or felo de se, or murder by persons unknown? Let us suppose an adept in Mr. Hume's philosophy to make one of the jury, and that he insists upon the previous question, whether there was any cause of the event, or whether it happened without a cause.’ Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Mind, vol. ii. p. 286. Compare vol. iii. p. 33: ‘This would put an end to all speculation, as well as to all the business of life.’

[722] ‘The obligation of contracts and promises is a matter so sacred, and of such consequence to human society, that speculations which have a tendency to weaken that obligation, and to perplex men's notions on a subject so plain and so important, ought to meet with the disapprobation of all honest men. Some such speculations, I think, we have in the third volume of Mr. Hume's “Treatise of Human Nature,” and in his “Enquiry into the Principles of Morals;” and my design in this chapter is, to offer some observations on the nature of a contract or promise, and on two passages of that author on this subject. I am far from saying or thinking, that Mr. Hume meant to weaken men's obligations to honesty and fair dealing, or that he had not a sense of these obligations himself. It is not the man I impeach, but his writings. Let us think of the first as charitably as we can, while we freely examine the import and tendency of the last.’ Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Mind, vol. iii. p. 444. In this, as in most passages, the italics are my own.

[723] ‘Without repeating what I have before said of causes in the first of these Essays, and in the second and third chapters of this, I shall here mention some of the consequences that may be justly deduced from this definition of a cause, that we may judge of it by its fruits.’ Reid's Essays, vol. iii. p. 339.

[724] ‘Bishop Berkeley surely did not duly consider that it is by means of the material world that we have any correspondence with thinking beings, or any knowledge of their existence, and that by depriving us of the material world, he deprived us at the same time of family, friends, country, and every human creature; of every object of affection, esteem or concern, except ourselves. The good bishop surely never intended this. He was too warm a friend, too zealous a patriot, and too good a Christian to be capable of such a thought. He was not aware of the consequences of his system’ (poor, ignorant Berkeley), ‘and therefore they ought not to be imputed to him; but we must impute them to the system itself. It stifles every generous and social principle.’ Reid's Essays, vol. ii. pp. 251, 252.

[725] In his Essays, vol. i. p. 179, he says of Berkeley, one of the deepest and most unanswerable of all speculators, ‘But there is one uncomfortable consequence of his system which he seems not to have attended to, and from which it will be found difficult, if at all possible, to guard it.’

[726] ‘This doctrine is dishonourable to our Maker, and lays a foundation for universal scepticism. It supposes the Author of our being to have given us one faculty on purpose to deceive us, and another by which we may detect the fallacy, and find that he imposed upon us.’ … ‘The genuine dictate of our natural faculties is the voice of God, no less than what he reveals from heaven; and to say that it is fallacious, is to impute a lie to the God of truth.’ … ‘Shall we impute to the Almighty what we cannot impute to a man without a heinous affront? Passing this opinion, therefore, as shocking to an ingenuous mind, and, in its consequences, subversive of all religion, all morals, and all knowledge,’ &c. Reid's Essays, vol. iii. p. 310. See also vol. i. p. 313.

[727] ‘His reasoning appeared to me to be just; there was, therefore, a necessity to call in question the principles upon which it was founded, or to admit the conclusion.’ Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, p. v. ‘The received doctrine of ideas is the principle from which it is deduced, and of which, indeed, it seems to be a just and natural consequence.’ p. 53. See also Reid's Essays, vol. i. pp. 199, 200, vol. ii. p. 211.